Leon Neyfakh is Leaving Slate

Leon Neyfakh announced in a thread of tweets that he will be leaving Slate “to start something new”. He is the host of Slate’s Slow Burn podcast. It appears that the “something new” will be a podcast called FIASCO.

Leon Neyfakh excavates the strange subplots and forgotten characters of recent political history – and finds surprising parallels to the present. Season 1 of Slow Burn captured what it felt like to live through Watergate; Season 2 does the same with the saga of Bill Clinton’s impeachment.

There is not a whole lot of information in the thread of tweets about FIASCO. Leon Neyfakh described it this way: “It will be about the past – why the history we half-remember played out the way it did, and what marks it left on the world we live in.”

Also according to the thread of tweets, Andrew Parsons will be the executive producer of FIASCO. Andrew Parson was the person responsible for sound on Slow Burn. Michelle Kaplan will become an assistant producer of FIASCO. She served as a researcher on Slow Burn Season 2. Leon Neyfakh says that Slow Burn “will continue to evolve and flourish under Slate’s care.”

The first season of FIASCO will arrive in the first half of 2019. It will be about Bush v. Gore and the battle over the 2000 election. The second season of FIASCO will appear later in 2019. It will tell the story of the Iran-Contra scandal. To me, it sounds like fans of Slow Burn will probably enjoy listening to FIASCO.